Throughout history, countries have had to decide between feeding the people or protecting them. But there’s another war being waged in the background. A hidden war. A financial war. And not one in 100,000 realises it’s happening.

As Bitcoin prices continue to fall, is this the end of the line for Bitcoin? And as (almost) all the other coins and tokens are highly positively correlated to Bitcoin if this is the end of Bitcoin, is this the end of cryptocurrencies?

It’s in our nature to follow the crowd, and it’s also in our nature to look to “experts” for guidance. We want to know it’s safe before we act. This behaviour is one of a group of biases that causes herding.

And there are people out there who not only know all about this collection of biases, they regularly exploit them…

Prices can go up on less turnover because there are more willing buyers than willing sellers and not because there’s thousands or millions of buyers. It’s a ratio, not an absolute number.

And when prices start trending more and more people start watching. The more they wait, they become more emotionally engaged and play vivid images in their heads seeing pictures of what could have been.

Excitement, anticipation, awe. The thrill of seeing something new for the first time releases powerful chemicals in your brain. Swimming in a cocktail of dopamine you see the potential of your discovery. At last, you have the key to the life you are destined for. The life you’ve always wanted.

On the 23rd of May 1995, three well-dressed twenty-somethings walked into a casino in Monte Carlo.

The consistent winners, the five percent, profit consistently from the other ninety-five percent. They’re systematic and ruthless.

If you sit down in front of your computer, fund an account and begin trading in cryptocurrencies (or any other financial market) without an understanding of edge, position size and money management, the odds are high you are going to become a fully paid-up member of the 95% club.

You might as well take your seat at the slots in your local casino.

Perhaps you’re thinking, you’d never play the slots because it’s a mug's game.

If you start trading cryptocurrencies without an understanding of your biases, (and how they affect you), and without understanding your edge, you might as well be sitting in front of the video game reels pressing the bet button.

Going against the crowd is hard because acting alone and answering only to yourself goes against your inbuilt biases and years of experiential life conditioning. We are trained to recognise authority and respond to an authority figure.

We think we’re in control. But studies in behavioural economics has shown we are not. We use a personal collection of subconscious biases and behaviour patterns to help us get through the day.

It could be a perceived expert from your bank or brokerage. It could be a TV talking head, or it could be an article in a newspaper. If you’ve taken a position and you read, see, or hear something that goes against your authority, it will be difficult for you to resist second-guessing yourself.

If you aren’t clear about exactly why you should take a position, you’ll find many catalysts waiting to either stop you from getting in or spook you into getting out too early.

Pushing the envelope, and on the edge of out of control. This is “Chuck” Yeager describing what it felt like as he broke the sound barrier.

And so it is with trading. Trading and investing in cryptocurrency markets is like traversing a fine line between success and failure. You’ve got to take the best information available to you and make a decision. It’s impossible to know the outcome. There are no guarantees. None.

How do you know when to push it? How do you know when to punch through?

The fuel of the 4th dimension is fear. Imagine how useful it would be if you could measure fear, better yet, imagine if you could bottle it. Because if you could, that would mean you could compare how much fear existed at specific moments in time.

Like the MIT’s mental card counting, you could use it figure out your “count.” You could use it as a gauge of when the market becomes less random, or when the market odds swing in your favour.

The 95% make decisions not with their heads, but with their hearts. They take their ideas from others and rarely use their wit to figure out a strategy.

Most delay taking any action until FOMO, the fear of missing out, has them in its grip. The 95% use technical analysis tools to help them make decisions.

The most common tools the 95% use are moving average momentum indicators. Simple moving averages, multiple moving averages, moving average convergence divergence, and stochastics. They use different moving average lengths to predict highs and lows in markets, but which indicator and settings work best? And there’s the trap.

Most people are dissatisfied with their lives. And paradoxically, it’s not the demographic you’d expect. The most disenfranchised with their lot is often the most outwardly successful.

It’s because they’ve done everything the system asks of them, and yet they know within themselves they were promised more. Somewhere between 35 and 45 years old, and stuck on the freeway, there comes a time when they ask, “Is this all there is?”

The more uncertain you become, the more likely you are to do nothing. And as you do nothing, opportunity passes you by. There are windows of time to act when speculating in the cryptocurrency markets. Miss them, and your edge slips away. The majority, the 95%, miss out because they look around for guidance from others. They visit chat rooms, twitter feeds, facebook, anywhere to give them a clue.

The masses do almost everything, except what is required to be consistent and successful in speculation.

When you invest, the only thing you have control over is the price you will pay. Every time you look at a market’s price, you can choose to buy or not buy.

This week Ripple had a slew of positive news releases relating to the adoption of XRP, the Ripple protocol currency, and the announcement that xRapid, the cross-border payment system, is going live next month.

Huge volume accompanied by good news. Does this mean the bear market in Ripple and cryptocurrencies is over?

Onboard an emotional roller coaster trying to be right, with no plan, no risk, and no money management, the 95% are destined to fail.

The 5% are patient. They wait for catalysts to force them into a position. The 95% think about the price they pay, but the 5% don’t. The 5% wait for triggers; they wait for catalysts that change the dynamic between supply and demand and events that change perceived future value.

If you can figure out the most likely shifts in society, you can use your observations of actual market behaviour and trend, and adjust your expectations as the market gives you new information feedback.

If market behaviour matches your expected long-term view, each data point that supports your hypothesis builds on the last allowing you to build up a big picture overview of complex markets.

Getting on trend will help you trade the right market at the right time.

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The book explains Bitcoin, the timing of its creation, and why it was launched in January 2009. The history of traditional FIAT money and how it has been confiscated, devalued and manipulated in recent history. Concluding with a discussion about the future and the possibility of a cashless society.